Diamonds in the Rough. Michelle Madow
tutored him in bio.” She tossed her hair back and smiled, as if enjoying a private joke. “We had one-on-one tutoring sessions in the private rooms all last semester, and let’s just say we got to know each other pretty well.”
“How well?” Courtney’s chest tightened at what Madison was hinting.
But Madison couldn’t have been involved with Brett. He would have said something, and besides, he would never be interested in Madison. She was the type of Goodman snob he didn’t hang out with—the type of girl who was ignorant of everything outside of her one-percenter bubble. What could they have in common?
“I got to know him well enough,” Madison said. “When two people spend that much time together, they form some sort of connection. We hung out a few times over the summer, too. I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned it.”
Courtney’s fingers clenched into fists, and she wanted to demand that Madison explain what she meant. But before she had a chance, three more girls walked in, followed by the teacher.
Throughout the introductory session, Courtney kept imagining Madison tutoring Brett in one of the individual rooms, the two of them getting to know each other until they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. And Madison had more experience than Courtney—Courtney’s only kiss had been with Brett at the grand opening. (There was also the time Oliver had tried to kiss her on the way home from the charity event held by his mom that she’d been forced to attend with him, but that didn’t count.)
The images of Madison and Brett in a small room together—using the table to study biology in a way quite different from reading about it in a textbook—made Courtney’s mind fuzzy and unfocused through the entire meeting. She barely heard a word.
If Madison had said that stuff to distract her, it had worked. But Courtney wasn’t having it. She also didn’t trust Madison to be honest.
There was only one way to find out the truth: she had to ask Brett herself.
* * *
Once back at the Diamond, Courtney knocked on Brett’s door. She needed to speak with him in person—this wasn’t something she wanted to ask via text message or over the phone. And it wasn’t a far trek, since their condos were across the hall.
Brett’s eyebrows shot up when he opened the door. Then he smiled, as if he thought her being there meant she’d changed her mind about them being together. Her stomach twisted at how off guard he would be when he found out the reason for her visit.
Courtney took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Approaching Brett was the right thing to do—it was the only thing she could do to keep the what-ifs from driving her crazy and messing up her focus in school. She was here to make sure she stayed on track academically.
It would be easier to convince herself of that if her heart hadn’t started pounding the moment she saw Brett.
“Hey.” He opened the door wider and motioned for her to come in. She did, keeping her hands gripped around the straps of her backpack so he couldn’t see them shaking.
His condo was nearly identical to the one Courtney shared with her sisters—a foyer, living room with a panoramic view of the Strip, dining area, kitchen and a door to the master bedroom, all in a sleek contemporary style. The only difference was that his didn’t have the extra hallway that led to the other two bedrooms.
“Are you busy?” Courtney asked.
“Just watching The Walking Dead,” he replied. Courtney glanced at the ninety-inch television—the same size as the one in her and her sisters’ living room—which was paused on an image of a fierce black woman swinging a sword at a bloodied, decaying monster. “I’m on season three.”
“I’ve never seen it,” she said. “Well, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know much about it. I never used to have time for TV.” She glanced out the window and reminded herself why she was there: to ask him about whatever had happened between him and Madison.
But he spoke again before she had a chance.
“I have all the seasons on DVD. Now that you have more free time, we could marathon them from the beginning.”
Her breath caught. Was he asking her as a date? Or as friends? Either way, marathon watching any show with Brett would be a bad idea. That would mean being alone with him for hours, and she couldn’t trust herself to repress her feelings for him for that long.
She glanced at the corpse monster on-screen again and cringed. “It looks…violent. And gruesome.”
“It definitely can be.” He picked up the remote and powered off the TV. “But it’s not bad when you remind yourself that it’s makeup and effects. Plus, even though it’s set in the zombie apocalypse, the essence of the show is about humanity—how people adapt and react in extreme situations, having to work together to survive with people they would have never encountered in their normal lives.”
“It sounds like some of the dystopian books I read,” Courtney said.
His eyes glinted with amusement. “So you don’t have time for TV, but you do have time for reading?”
“Always.” Courtney lowered her hands from the straps of her bag. “I borrowed books from the library at school so often that the librarian knew me by name. I can’t fall asleep at night without reading at least a chapter, but I usually read more. And while I know I shouldn’t, I sometimes read before doing my homework, to recenter my mind so I can focus.”
“That’s why I watch an episode of a TV show when I get home from school.” Brett’s voice rose, sounding so excited that they had this small thing in common. “But I should read more. Whenever I read a book, I usually enjoy it. But there are so many movies and television series I want to watch that I’ll never have time for them all in my lifetime, so I go to those first.”
“That’s how I feel about books.” Courtney smiled. “It’s why I never read a book more than once—because the time spent rereading one book is one less new story I’ll be exposed to in my life.”
Suddenly Courtney realized she’d gotten off track from the reason she’d dropped by. “Anyway.” She played with her hands, hating the turn this conversation was about to take. “I talked to Madison at the student tutoring meeting.”
“Oh.” Brett’s face fell. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“We’re not.” Her voice shook at how she’d clearly struck a nerve. “She happened to be there early, like me, and she…mentioned you.”
“What about me?” He ran his hands through his hair, his eyes not meeting hers. She’d wanted to believe Madison was exaggerating, but after seeing Brett’s reaction to the mere fact that Madison had talked to Courtney, she wasn’t so sure.
“She told me she tutored you last year.” Feeling shaky again, Courtney walked to the sofa and perched on the arm, dropping her bag on the floor. “In bio.”
He joined her on the couch, keeping space between them, and took a few seconds to respond. “She did,” he finally said. “I was behind in bio since I’d transferred into Goodman from public school, so I went to the tutoring center for help. Madison was the tutor assigned to me.”
“Okay.” Courtney forced herself to sound distant and detached—there was no other way for her to continue without risking losing control of her emotions. “She hinted that more went on between you than tutoring. That you were…involved. Over the summer.”
Brett looked down, and Courtney’s heart dropped. “It only happened once.”
She reeled back, the thought of Brett and Madison together making her blood boil. How could she have not known about this until now?
“But it was before I met you,” he said, his eyes blazing with intensity. “The night it happened, Madison and I both had too much to drink, and we kissed. It didn’t go further than